It was March 2007, France's under-16 team had agreed to play Poland in two friendly matches in three days and it was not an opportunity that scouts from the Premier League were going to miss. France's leading young talent is always worth a look and this particular vintage came highly recommended.

Chelsea, of course, were present and correct and, after taking in a 0-0 draw followed by a thumping 5-0 France victory, one player had advertised himself as being of an exquisitely rare quality. Gaël Kakuta held the scouts in thrall. Whether with his first touch, his pace in possession or his mesmeric ability to ghost past challengers, they could not take their eyes off him.

Kakuta scored in the second game but, by then, Chelsea were hooked. Dispatches were duly filed to Frank Arnesen, then the club's head of scouting and youth development. Here was a player that they had to have, one who was worth going the extra mile to sign.

The winger, who was aged 15 at the time, was scouted on further occasions and the wheels of a deal were set in motion. But, as with other occasions on Arnesen's watch, those wheels rolled over people and clubs who would howl with indignation – in Kakuta's case, his club Lens, with whom he had an "elite training" contract, if not a professional one. They cried foul to Fifa and more than two years on Chelsea and Arnesen have been left to digest the consequences. The London club have been barred from playing the next two transfers windows, pending appeal.

Arnesen was at a low ebb in the summer of 2007, when Kakuta arrived at Stamford Bridge. They were, as it transpired, the final months of the Jose Mourinho management era and, having fallen out with the volatile Portuguese, Arnesen found himself on the fringes. It was a time of ascendancy in the complex world of Chelsea politics for the chief executive, Peter Kenyon. Circumstances have since changed and Arnesen, for whom Mourinho's departure in September 2007 was a very good thing, completed his rise, in July, to the position of sporting director. Kenyon's stock, meanwhile, has seemingly fallen.

Yet Arnesen was at the helm in terms of youth recruitment when Kakuta was tempted to west London; the scouts reported to him and considered him to be the boss. As the Dane feels his way into his new broader and more powerful role, the timing of the Fifa sanction could not be worse, or more embarrassing.

Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Chelsea owner, is a man of few words but his silence can connote menace. If there is a can to carry, it could be Arnesen's, particularly as he and the club have previously been accused of illegally poaching young players.

In 2006, the Leeds United chairman, Ken Bates, accused Chelsea of tapping up the academy players Michael Woods and Tom Taiwo before signing them, and making an illegal approach for Danny Rose, who chose to stay at Elland Road before he eventually joined Tottenham Hotspur. "Because of the financial strength of Abramovich," Bates said at the time, "financial punishments alone will make no difference to them." Chelsea strongly denied any wrongdoing.

Weeks later, Arnesen was shown by the BBC's Panorama programme appearing to make an approach to the Middlesbrough schoolboy player Nathan Porritt. He was secretly filmed offering the 15-year-old a payment of £150,000, although Chelsea have always denied any wrongdoing. Although Porritt stayed put, other clubs have had their feathers ruffled and their prized assets spirited away by Chelsea's's hard cash and no-nonsense approach.

There is a certain irony in Arnesen's Chelsea career beginning with a tapping-up storm. He was made to serve a period of gardening leave after Chelsea were ruled to have made an illegal approach to Tottenham for him. Chelsea were forced to pay £5m to Spurs and Arnesen was immediately under pressure to justify his own poaching. One of his weapons of choice was Abramovich's chequebook.

Chelsea are far from being the only big club who use their financial clout to raid smaller ones. Indeed, Manchester United are the subject of action from Le Havre over the tactics they allegedly used to take the 16-year-old Paul Pogba. But at the moment, it is Chelsea who are squirming under an unforgiving spotlight.